


You built these walls, now tear them down

by Fawkespryde



Series: Bleed it out (dark one-shots) [1]
Category: Rooster Teeth/Achievement Hunter RPF, Sideshow - Fandom
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Death, definitely a one shot, detective criken, mentions of torture, serial killer bed, the detective au I never thought I needed till it was prompted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 06:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18685726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fawkespryde/pseuds/Fawkespryde
Summary: “Alright, you want to play ‘cops and robbers’. Let's play then."Criken took a few moments to compose himself. He was mad at the turn of events, the way the police acted, the way the investigation had been treated. But most of all, he was mad at himself for being played for the fool.





	You built these walls, now tear them down

***

“-then there was this one and finally him.” Criken spread the photographs across the table like a deck of cards. He watched with bated breath as the man seated across from him gave each one a cursory glance before looking back up at the detective.

Bed clicked his tongue, still picking at a fingernail in a bored gesture. “Oh, what a shame. You only found twelve.”

“Is that an admission of guilt?” Criken frowned. He quickly scribbled something on his notebook and ensured the tape recorder was still recording. There was no way he was going to miss out on that. He needed that evidence more than anything.

“Simply stating a fact. Although, do you really think a recording of me admitting that I killed all those people will hold up in court?” Bed tilted his head to the side, that sly smile on his face. It was the same one he wore when the police kicked down the door to his house. The same one he had when he was dragged out to the police car handcuffed. The same one that flashed momentarily when the jury read ‘not guilty’ for all of the charges. “Remember how well that worked last time?”

Criken knew that the punishment that had been served to the monster sitting before him would have been severe if he had just done his job properly. If the crime scene and evidence had of been handled properly and not contaminated, he wouldn’t be here. He wouldn't be sitting at the same table as a man who clearly found the whole situation amusing.

“Tell me.. Detective.” Bed let the title hang between them like he was tasting the words out for the first time. “What do you really hope to get out of this? You want me to sit here and gush about the various people in these pictures? I killed many… many more and you didn’t even find half of them. Disappointing.” He lifted his cuffed hands and pushed them around on the table, shuffling them carelessly.

One of them fell to the floor and Criken made a wild grab for it but missed. It fluttered to the ground and he had to duck under the table to get it. He managed to get ahold of it between two fingers, casting the smiling woman printed on it a cursory glance before he sat back up in his chair again. Criken almost jolted out of his seat at how close Bed was leaning forward now.

The criminal had moved fast and quietly for someone handcuffed and he was was now taking up much of the space on the table, chin resting on his tented finger. Bed had a grin on his face and rose a brow as Criken took a moment to compose himself from his sudden movement.

“Is there a problem, detective?”

Criken loudly slapped the picture back on the table and took a breath, trying to school his features into some semblance of calm. He noticed that Bed had piled all the pictures up into one stack and reached forward, tapping at the top photo in agitation. “Yes, I want you to focus. Now, starting with the first victim..”

Bed was looking at Criken’s face with an intense look as though he were mentally dissecting him from across the table. After a few seconds, he seemed to suddenly lose interest. Almost like he hadn’t found what he was looking for. He went back to picking at his fingernails as if dismissing the detective. “No.”

“Tell me about the first victim.” Criken repeated a little louder this time. He was starting to lose his patience with the man who had been yanking his investigations teams chains for years now. Feeling like he was getting nowhere, Criken decided to back down and try a different tactic. He grabbed the stack of pictures and pulled them across the table back to him.

“You know, I spent a lot of time studying your work. Your actual work.” Criken flipped the pictures over and rested his hands on the surface. “You make such a big show and put on this grand performance for everyone else to see. It’s quite impressive.”

Bed’s crooked grin seemed to slowly fade and return to some semblance of a normal smile. It looked like he was almost caught off guard by the detectives admission. He opened his mouth to reply but was interrupted as Criken lifted a finger and tapped the tabletop.

“Well… at first.”

Bed’s brow twitched at that but closed his mouth and returned to his rested stance, leaned back in his seat. His eyes were dark though, giving away his obvious attention being drawn back in as he watched on as Criken continued to speak.

“Then I realized something. I sat back and though, all those flashing lights and loud sounds. You showing up to the police station of your own free will. Those were all just cries for attention, weren’t they?” Criken tilted his head at the exact same time Bed did and their eyes remained locked. “You just weren’t getting what you wanted out of the police. Of course, that’s not interesting. What the thrill in that?”

“You showed up and practically presented yourself on a silver platter and what do they say? There’s no way someone like you could perpetrate such cruel and intellectually planned deaths.” Bed’s gaze diverted at that and Criken could tell he was getting through by the clenching of his jaw and the heavy bob of his adam’s apple. “That’s what it says on the report you know. A copycat.. A macabre fan of a serial killer, nothing mo-”

Bed let out a laugh at that. It was a single loud and high pitched noise, almost on the brink of madness, but just that alone said more than a thousand subtle glances. He seemed to realize what he just did and reigned it in but not fast enough. Bed was unable to hide the touch of madness in his expression before the other had caught sight of it. His head had been tilted downwards but Criken saw the flash of malice behind the fringe of hair.

“They didn’t appreciate your performances, did they?” Criken asked, leaning forward and letting that question hang in the air before digging around in the pile of pictures to retrieve a few and flipped them over to show Bed. They were pictures of police officers in uniforms, each one looking professionally taken like something you could put up on a wall above a fireplace. “What did they say?”

At that silence, Criken went on. “C’mon, these three must have said or done something to set you off. You had hundreds to choose from but you picked these three in particular.” He tapped the first one and rotated it so Bed could get a better look at the smiling face. He seemed in a transfixed state as it was pushed closer to him. “And you tortured them more than any of the others. You kept them alive for days were as you were fast and efficient with everyone else.”

Bed slapped a hand onto it to stop it from flying off the table. The sound was a lot louder than he intended from the wince and he lowered his handcuffed hands back under the table, hiding them from view. He said nothing but his breath came out in short breaths as another was rotated the same way as the last one. It faced him as well and Bed’s eyes dilated as if riding a second high, a return of adrenaline at the memory of the kill. “...Hmm, did I?”

Criken knew from that expression that he was close to cracking. He was so close to getting all the evidence he needed from the other. But there was a small voice at the back of head whispering that maybe pushing him to point of snapping might not be the best of ideas. There may be cameras watching their interactions but there were no guards in the room with them and undoubtedly, it would take several minutes before any guards would come running. He was, for all intents and purposes, alone in a room with a man who had killed twelve people, maybe even more if what he had said before held any weight to it.

But sitting back and letting this man inevitably end up walking away from this conversation scott free was not something he could stand for. No, this was the only chance he had to get what he needed from Bed before he disappeared into obscurity for several months like last time.

Calming his racing pulse, Criken pressed on and turned the last picture. The man in the photo was smiling just like all the others were. It was the complete opposite of what he looked like when the investigating officers found the body or what was left of it. “What about him? What did he say to warrant the torture he went through? The autopsy showed that you kept him alive the longest of all of them. Almost two whole weeks.”

Bed shrugged at his words but only looked to be half listening. He was now leaned fully forward, eyes locked on the picture and breath coming out in heavy pant. His shoulders almost heaved with every halting intake of air and his lips trembled as if he was having a hard time maintaining whatever facade he was wearing. Criken, worried that he was having a panic attack, reached forward to grab both shoulder but the man jerked away before his hands could touch him.

He threw his head back and leaned backwards in a sickening macabre arc. Without any sort of prompting, he started rocking back and forth, the chair straining as he forced it to balance on two legs before he brought it back down with a loud thud. The room grew long and silent after that noise and Bed maintained his leaned back pose, gaze affixed to the ceiling.

Criken could almost hear his heart beating loud in his ears. This was it, his mind whispered. This was the breaking point. A feeling of dread filled him at the sound of air escaping the man across from him and there was a sickening crack as Bed rolled his shoulders and sagged again. He slowly lowered his chin to peer at Criken with half glazed eyes and a dopey smile. His handcuffed hands raised to run through his hair and he let out a groan as if he had just hit his climax from those pictures alone.

The detective fixed him with a disgusted look in realization and got up from his seat, the chair made a loud screech of metal on concrete. He backed up towards the door, not taking his eyes off Bed while he moved. “You’re disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. This interview is done.”

“Oh, you know exactly what to say to get me going.” Bed licked his lips, still running hands through his hair like he had not a care in the world. His breathing was still heavy as he spoke.

Criken sneered at him and approached the table to retrieve his belongings. He shoved the pictures into his side bag and grabbed the tape recorder, clicking stop on it. “As do you. Your admissions have given me enough.”

“Enough to reopen my case file?” Bed inquired as if he were truly interested in that fact and leaned forward with a curious incline of his head. “Does that mean you and I will be seeing more or each other?”

Criken pressed the buzzer to indicate he was ready to leave and refused to say anything else. Instead, keeping an eye on Bed in case he decided to become violent all of a sudden. The man was irrational and could change his passive ways at the turn of a hat if he so chose to.

“Well, that really is a shame.” Bed grinned and lifted his bound hands up, reaching into the front of his shirt. He produced a small tape from within and waved it back and forth between two fingers. “What a shame indeed~”

Criken didn't need to retrieve his recorder from his bag to recognize where that tape had come from. He clenched his teeth and stared down the grinning man, who was lounging back in his seat without a care in the world. “You son of a bitch. When-”

“Oooh such language.” Bed admonished with a click of his tongue, tucking the tape back into his shirt. Before he said anything else, the door behind Criken buzzed and two men in uniform were standing in the hallway.

“Finally. Can I get a hand over here? He stole something of mine.” Criken let out a sigh of relief as one officer walked past him to approach Bed but it died at the sight of the man instead being helped to his feet. “What, what are you doing?”

The other police officer looked at Criken with a wary look. “His lawyer is here. By law, we cannot allow this line of questioning to continue.”

“But the tape.” Criken couldn't believe what was happening before his very eyes. Bed was supposed to be in custody for twenty four hours. That's how the system worked. That's how things were SUPPOSED to work. But the events taking place before him showed otherwise.

Bed rubbed his wrists as the cuffs were removed and tilted his head at the officer. “I have no idea what he's talking about but can I go now? I have other business that I'm pressingly late for.”

The police officer nodded and passed by Criken, leading Bed from the questioning room and out into the lobby. The detective was left with a slack expression on his face and he looked helplessly at the other cop, a hand raised to point at the doorway Bed had just been allowed so kindly to walk out of. “Your making a mistake here. That man is a killer and you’re just letting him walk free?”

“We can't touch him. Even if you had gotten anything out of that discussion, it wouldn't be usable since his lawyer bailed him out about ten minutes ago.”

Criken grabbed at his hair in frustration. “You mean to say that I wasted all that time questioning him and he didn't even have to be in there?!?”

“He said and I quote, ‘I have twenty minutes to kill before my driver arrives.’ So yes, you did.” The officer shrugged and gave Criken a pitying pat on the shoulder as he passed. “If it makes you feel better. You’re not the first one to try and fail.”

Criken frowned. “Yeah, that doesn't..” He stepped out of the interview room and walked down the hall, coming out into the lobby just as Bed was signing something on a clipboard.

“We finished here?” Bed asked, offering the clipboard back in exchange for a box of items. He collected his wallet, thumbing through the various pieces of i.d within. Content that everything was there, he slid it into his back pocket and shrugged on his jacket.

The cop glanced down at the paperwork and gave him a dismissive wave of the hand before turning to serve the next person in line and Bed walked out, free from any form of punishment.. again. It was business per usual in the precinct and the fact that no one seemed bothered that they had just allowed a criminal to walk and everything seemed so normal really made the reality of the situation hit Criken. He was overwhelmed and the room seemed to spin around him, leaving him feeling queasy.

Criken ignored everyone else in the building and in sickened daze, walked outside and got down two steps before his legs gave away and he had to grab the railing before he fell.

“You know, it really is a shame.” A voice called from behind him and he glanced over to see Bed. The man had been leaning against the side of the building the whole time as if he had laid in wait for him. Criken trembled at the sight and his grip on the railing tightened as he realized that there was nowhere he could go now.

Bed stopped at the top of the stairs and stretched like he hadn't a care in the world. With a cocky smile, he lifted his sunglasses up to rest them on top of his head and glanced around casually before setting his gaze back on the pale man before him. “You and I.. on opposite sides. A truly enrapturing tale of cops and robbers.”

He walked down the steps till he was stood on the same one as Criken and glanced over, patting the front of his shirt where the tape was still undoubtedly hidden. “ But.. perhaps it doesn't have to be that way. You know, we can be beautiful together. The things we could make. The performances. Just think, the world could be our stage.”

Criken gritted his teeth and let out a bitter laugh. “Do you really think that after everything you’ve done, I'd be willing to just.. run away with you into the sunset and join you on your mass murdering spree?!”

“No, and to be honest if you have of said yes. I would have been awfully disappointed in your sudden shift in morals.” Bed shrugged and lowered his sunglasses, covering his eyes just as the cloud covering cleared up and the sun started beating down on the two of them. “It's a shame.. a real shame. Maybe in another life.”

Criken flinched as a hand reached forward to curl under his chin. He threw a hand out as he was pushed into the railing but it was caught by Bed as he planted a hard kiss to his lips. It was quick and the man took two steps away, dancing just out of his range before Criken could shove him back.

Bed turned and walked away, throwing a smirk over his shoulder before walking to the car waiting out front for him. He got into the backseat and just like that, on a midsummer day, he was gone.

Criken took a few moments to compose himself against the railing and rubbed the back of sleeve across his mouth. He wore a frustrated expression on his face and was felt angry at everything. He was mad at the turn of events, the way the police had let him walk in there despite knowing he was doomed to fail. But most of all, he was mad at himself for being played for the fool.

He adjusted the strap of his bag as he walked down the front steps and was surprised at the sound of something jingling at the movement. As if something not packed away properly had fallen to the bottom of his back. Criken removed the satchel and peeked inside, taking notice of the cassette tape sitting innocently within like it had always been there.

Criken almost thought the light was paying tricks on him but the sticky note taped to the front of its surface told a different story. He lifted it out of the bag and muttered a quiet ‘son of a bitch’ under his breath as he read what was written on it. ‘Catch me if you can.’

He shoved the cassette back into his bag with a more determined expression on his face. For the first time since entering the police station, he had hope again. It was dangled in front of his face by the man himself and while he knew it was most definitely a trick, there was no way he was going to ignore it. He may have been played for a fool this time but he’ll be smarter next time.

“Alright, you want to play ‘cops and robbers’. Let's play then.”

***

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of many prompts sent to me on my tumblr. If your interested in reading other stuff, check out my tumblr at: https://fawkespryde.tumblr.com/


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